I am a character enmeshed within swirling vortices of space-time. I am a character aware of myself as a shadow, sensing the stranger who portrays me. I was comfortable as a shadow. I felt emboldened as my lesser dimensional self, assured in the power of my actions and secure within linear time, before knowledge of my actor. Our lovely masque is crystalized and made molten.

Opera, gesamtkunstwerk or “total art,” is the integration of all modes of human creativity—an experience that engages all of our senses and replaces one’s own narrative with one carefully crafted. Real Things About Real Things presents a similar experience, one relevant to our present moment, which philosopher Timothy Morton refers to as the “time of Hyperobjects”, or a time when “…the more we know about the interconnection, the more it becomes impossible to posit some entity beyond or behind the interrelated beings.” ​In keeping with Morton’s ideas, the works in Real Things About Real Things speak directly to a reality that exists without foreground or background—a reality where all things are deeply entangled and are constantly both acting and being acted upon. Morton writes, “We have no world because the objects that functioned as invisible scenery have dissolved.” How can one maintain a sense of agency upon recognizing that separation from our environment is an illusion? What ethical and moral dilemma do living without a world pose? Does this knowledge enable transcendence, or threaten to deliver a break from reality?